


blow a kiss, fire a gun

by royallieu



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Inspired By The Second Trailer For S7, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 14:29:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11292570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royallieu/pseuds/royallieu
Summary: Sansa knew that Jon would always love Arya more than he loved her. She just never thought he would ever confront her about it, especially during times like these.





	blow a kiss, fire a gun

Sansa was lucky to find Jon in the godswood; just when she was about to give up altogether, the possibility had struck.

He was sitting beneath the heart tree while he tended to his sword. It was a task that should’ve have been delegated to his squire, but Sansa knew that he liked to do it himself, if only because it brought about a certain calmness that was missing from his life—from all of their lives, really.

Jon couldn’t look any more like father even if he were to try, she thought, until she had to remind herself that Ned Stark was only _her_ father now, not theirs. It dawned on her that the last time she had been here with Jon, he was telling her of his plans to go beyond the Wall. Sansa felt guilty thinking about it, but during that time she had been convinced that she was seeing him for the last time. _He’ll die if he leaves_ , she remembered thinking, nearly sinking beneath the weight of fear and pain. Jon would die, all while their enemies surrounded them from each end of the continent, winter approaching them with a force that they had only heard about from Old Nan. A part of her wanted to scream; another part wanted to break down and cry. In truth, Sansa never felt colder than she did that day, when she thought she was probably saying goodbye to him for the very last time.

Jon looked up from his sword when she was just a few paces before him, his face lit up with surprise. “Sansa,” he said. She offered no greeting in return. She was still was trying hard to ignore the drumming against her temples, which, admittedly, wasn’t as fierce as it had been when she woke up, but it remained a nuisance nonetheless.

“What was the matter with you this morning?” she demanded, staring down at him with sternness on her features.  

Jon blinked at her. “What do you mean?”

“You _know_ what I mean, Jon.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice the way you were acting during the council? Those looks you were tossing my way?”

His lips parted in preparation for a rebuke, but he dropped his gaze instead. Sansa held back a triumphant smirk. Jon would’ve been a fool if he was going to deny that he’d watched her for most of the council, an act of which unnerved her to no end. When she met his eyes once, she’d found them unreadable, but his face held a good measure of concern and curiosity on it. Jon would look away as soon as he realized he’d been caught, but that didn’t stop him from giving it another go as soon as she placed her attention on the discussion at hand. She’d already woken up crabby and disoriented; the last thing she needed was Jon distracting her from the important tasks at hand.

“Nothing’s the matter with me,” he answered, after a lengthy pause. “I’m fine, really. Are _you_ all right?”

A good portion of his black curls had already escaped the knot he tied behind his head. Sansa tried to ignore how handsome he looked. It was a fact that grew more apparent as each day passed, and she just didn’t know what to make of it. That wasn’t even the worst of it, really; as of late, she found herself more distracted by the broadness of his shoulders, or the way the leather band hung on his tapered waist so perfectly. Jon would make a handsome groom, she once thought. It was a startling realization, one that was followed by a pang in her chest.  

“Of course I’m fine,” she said, a little defensively. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You had quite a bit of wine last night.”

Sansa could feel her face heating up. “Oh, yes. That.”

“Yes, that.” Jon gave her a long look before he spoke again. “Do you remember anything about last night?” he asked.

Sansa shifted uncomfortably. “What is there to remember, anyway?”

It wasn’t a lie, not really, but neither was it a smart way of dodging the truth. When it came to the events from last night, there _were_ certain gaps in her memory that were utterly blank; it was as if a snowstorm had taken place in her head, but when it cleared, the storm had swept all the memories along with it. Sansa had no recollection of returning to her bedchambers, a fact that startled her when she was alert enough to reminisce upon it.

Jon shook his head. “You don’t remember, then,” he said. He sounded rather morose, more so than usual, at least, and it made her even more uncertain. Sansa racked her mind for anything that might have shone a light on whatever happened last night, but she came up with nothing.

She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “Jon, what happened?”

It was his turn to shift nervously. Sansa could tell he was trying to sift through his thoughts, gathering the right set of words to use. Despite the wind that rustled the leaves and glided through their clothes, there was a stillness in the air that she knew could never be felt beyond the godswood, when so much life teemed in every nook and cranny of the castle. It made her feel as if they might just be the only two people left in existence.

“Jon,” she echoed, this time with a more pressing tone. “Was it that bad?”

He shrugged, staring down at his sword. Light gleamed off the blade, like a deadly jewel. “You said some things last night that I don’t think you meant to say out loud,” he finally revealed.

Sansa bristled at that. She didn’t want to admit it, but there were quite a few things she didn’t want Jon ever knowing. Sansa tried to swallow, but it was difficult; her throat had suddenly become very dry.  

“Like what?”

He looked hesitant. “Jon, tell me,” she ordered.

“Can I ask you something, before I do?”

Jon was bargaining with her, and she didn’t like it. “What is it you want to know?”

He looked up from his sword, his eyes searching her face. “Do you truly believe I care about you less than I care for Arya?”

For moment there was only the sound of the wind as it howled around them, singing to its own tune. Her mind was abuzz with the things she could say, one possibility giving way to another, until, finally, everything got lost in each other.

“It’s true though, isn’t it?”

His face fell. “It’s not,” he said, speaking slowly, carefully. “It’s the farthest thing from the truth, Sansa.”

Panic was beginning to well up inside her. “Why are you asking me things like that?” she demanded, desperation lining her voice. “Is it because of whatever happened last night? What did I say?”

She took a step back when Jon rose to his feet. Something in the air had changed. Sansa suspected that Jon knew it as well as she did.

“You enjoyed telling me last night how well you knew me,” he explained. “It was all you could talk about. The thing was, the more you spoke, the more I realized how wrong you were.”

His words stung. Sansa did secretly pride herself in the belief that she knew him better than most, even if that might not be true anymore, now that Arya was back at Winterfell. Still, she had been Jon’s confidante for such a considerable amount of time that she was sure she could gauge his feelings and emotions.

“Tell me what I said last night,” she ordered, “and I’ll tell you whether it’s true or whether it was the wine that was talking.”

He considered her proposition for a moment.

“You said that I would always held Arya in high esteem,” he informed, looking like it pained him to say the words out loud. “Higher than you, even.”

“Well, of course you would,” she insisted, even while she was struggling to keep her face neutral. To her utmost disappointment, jealousy flared through her while she thought about Arya’s close bond with Jon. She hated feeling this way, knew that it was neither one’s fault for the deep connection that had always been present between them, but there was no helping how she felt, either, no matter how hard she tried to clamp it down with private admonitions and self-loathing. _You’ve had Jon all to yourself long enough now_ , she reminded herself constantly, but it made little difference. If they had been close before, Jon and Arya were practically inseparable now, a fact that even had Daenerys Targaryen couldn’t help but point out once or twice.

“The two of you were so close to one another when you were younger,” she reminded, struggling to hold her gaze with his. “It’s no surprise you favour her over me, you know.”

His face darkened. “That’s not true, Sansa.”

Sansa tilted her head, regarding him with an expression of bemusement. “You two have hardly been seen outside each other’s company. You agree with her far more than you’ve ever agreed with me.” Another pain rang in her chest. “At this point, you mine as well admit that you were more satisfied seeing Arya than you were when you saw me. Oh, it’s all right,” she insisted, as soon as she saw the way his face tightened, “there’s nothing wrong about it, Jon. It is what it is.” She forced herself to smile. “Besides, it’s lovely to see how happy you make each other. Don’t you think you deserve it, after everything that’s happened? After everything that _could_ happen?”

She was being honest. After everything they’d been through, Jon and Arya deserved whatever happiness came their way. _So do you,_ whispered a voice inside her head, soft and reassuring. Sansa knew that, of course. But as she studied Jon, recalling the rush of emotions she’d felt as she had watched him reunite with her little sister, Sansa wondered if she’d ever find someone who could make her as happy as Jon did.

“You know what? Nevermind.” She turned on her feel, convinced that she didn’t actually need to know all that she said to him last night—in fact, it was probably easier for the both of them if she didn’t. Sansa wasn’t sure if she could look him in the eye after such a humiliation, and it was clear that Jon wasn’t faring any better. Of course he would deny any favoritism on his part, but what he claimed and what he felt were two different things. Jon had so much weighing him down already; he probably didn’t want to add a guilty conscience to it all.

“Sansa, wait.”

She heard him, loud and clear, but Sansa refused to listen. “I’ve things I need to see to,” she threw over her shoulder, forcing herself to keep moving. It was absurd, she thought. They were in the midst of a great war, everyone’s lives pitted against a great, supernatural force that none of the maesters and their ancient texts could fully explain—not yet anyway; and here they were, ruminating on something as irrelevant as who Jon might love more. The wind continued to moan and howl around her as she walked, a desolate song that could well have accompanied the heartache she kept on trying to ignore, but her steps were resolute, her shoulders pushed back. There was nothing for Jon to explain, nothing at all—

Jon appeared in front of her so fast that Sansa collided right into him, unable to comprehend what was going on; she stumbled back hastily and nearly lost her footing in the snow, but Jon’s arm darted forward, his fingers wrapped around her wrist to steady her.

She let out a shaky breath. “You…you’re blocking my path,” she pointed out, glaring at Jon. He was still holding onto her wrist, a fact that made little bumps rise on the back of her neck. _There’s nothing to it,_ she told herself again and again, even while his touch felt like fire. Perhaps Jon really was more of a Targaryen than she could ever believe.

Thanking him for halting her fall was what she should’ve done, but she wouldn’t have been in such a state in the first place if he hadn’t surprised her like that. Sansa opened her mouth, ready once again to tell him to step aside. “Would you pl—”

“You don’t understand, do you?”

There was so much emotion in his voice that it startled her. Sansa blinked at him several times. “What are you talking about?”

Jon tilted his head towards the gray skies. When he looked back at her, his eyes were stormy, but there was a vulnerability to him that she hadn’t seen before.

“It isn’t that I love Arya more than you,” he said, shaking his head slowly. His voice was rough like sandpaper. “It’s not like that at all, Sansa. It’s the fact that I love you differently.”

Her throat suddenly felt parched while she hear her own blood rushing through inside her ears. “How could y—I don’t understand,” she stumbled, her own voice barely above a whisper. Her knees knocked together beneath the layers of skirts she wore, even while she was suddenly burning up inside. She let out a small gasp when he tugged her body towards him, their faces only a few spaces apart.

The hint of a smile ghosted along his mouth as he looked at her beneath fanned eyelashes. “I said you wouldn’t understand, didn’t I?” he said, his thumb finding that small area of skin that wasn’t covered by either glove or sleeve, caressing it tenderly.

It wasn’t right for them to be seen like this, even though she knew that nobody ever ventured into the godswood besides her siblings, but it was so strange, with Jon so close to her like she’s never known before, that she simply couldn’t think straight anymore.

“Jon,” she warned, but her attempt was feeble, even to her own ears.

The tension in his body rolled off him like waves. “It was hard enough keeping away from you before, when I thought I was still nothing but your father’s bastard.” Sansa could feel his breath dance across her face as he spoke, every word like a boulder that knocked down whatever sense she had left. Jon had dropped his gaze while he spoke, his face hard with self-contempt. “You were already the world to me then, but when Bran told me about Lyanna Stark and what he’d seen in the Tower of Joy, I knew I was lost.”

When his eyes slid back up towards her face, something in her mind clicked. “You aren’t my half-brother anymore,” she stated, as if this was actually something neither of them knew, when, in truth, it was all that everyone around them could talk about. Sansa understood now, her own breathing irregular. Her heart raced almost painfully in her chest, as if it were trying to escape, while the pieces she hadn’t been able to fit together before magically fell into place.

Jon shot her a dark look, his brown eyes “No, I’m not,” he rasped. “I’m not your half-brother anymore, Sansa. Don’t you see it makes it so much easier to love you the way I long to? Don’t you understand it makes it so damn easy to want you the way I do?”

She leaned forward to kiss him, all sense of propriety completely lost on her. Sansa kissed him like she’d never kissed anyone else before, basking in the feel of his lips against hers, her blood singing in her veins when he responded with all the passion she dreamt Jon possessed—the sort of unbridled passion that a man reserved exclusively for his lover. Sansa didn’t want this to end, not now, not ever. She wanted to forget the world around them, the threat that awaited them all beyond the Wall, the uncertain future that lay ahead now that winter was well and truly upon them. She wanted to spend eternity and more lost in Jon’s kiss, in the beauty of this moment, all her heartache and jealousy completely obliterated.

She was gasping when they pulled apart, both of them desperate for air. Jon’s hand had found its way around her neck, and she leaned into it eagerly, feeling as light as a feather.

“I want to be yours,” she said, bringing his hand towards her mouth to kiss his palm, rough and well-callused. Sansa imagined that same hand roaming over her body, free from all the layers of dress, free from her small clothes, his long fingers dipping into places that made her blush. Strangely enough, she didn’t care.

She couldn’t help but shudder when Jon lowered his head and placed a row of kisses along the edge of her jaw. “Body and soul,” he said against her jaw, wrapping his free arm possessive around her waist. Sansa never felt as safe as she did then.

“Yes,” she whispered against his ear. “Body and soul.”

 

 

 

**AN:** Definitely inspired by that second trailer that had all of us shook. Let me know what you guys think—and look, a happy ending! =D =D =D


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